


the end of us

by Still_sleepless



Category: ATEEZ, ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Angst, Apocalypse, Death, End of the World, M/M, Magic, Prophecy, Superpowers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-06
Updated: 2019-07-06
Packaged: 2020-06-23 15:56:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19704643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Still_sleepless/pseuds/Still_sleepless
Summary: There is no answer, he concludes. There's just him alone with his thoughts and a wristwatch with hands that don't move anymore.(The minutes tick by for everyone but Yeosang, days drip like treacle and he sings. Oh, how he sings).





	the end of us

There was a place, long ago. He remembers it vaguely. A place with things that no longer make sense. It was a city, perhaps. One that thrummed with life -always moving onwards- and contained so many stories. It's gone now, he knows. Taken away by the storm that had stolen everything from him, stolen away the world.

He doesn't know why he's still here. 

Once, when the city still stood. There were people. He had people. Family and friends who called him by a name that no longer has any meaning _(he screams it sometimes, pretends that the echo is an answer and not a question)._ There was someone who told him he was special when he was still young enough to believe in happy endings. A small boy with red hair and a shiny smile who claimed that he would be the one to save the world. He had _seen_ it happen. He believed the boy and began trading his childhood for his destiny. Nothing could save them, though. 

_Yeosang_. He thinks as he's lying on a boulder one day, scratching at a scar on his bicep. _They called me Yeosang._ It's not a revelation in a world where he cannot speak to anyone but he clutches it close regardless. The last thing he possesses from before the sun swallowed the moon.

* * *

It began with rain.

At nineteen years of age Yeosang and his makeshift crew of heroes witnessed the first storm of the apocalypse. Cities drowned under entire oceans of water and in their place spawned creatures that defied logic. 

From then onwards civilisation began it's downwards descent. The green storm soon became the least of humanity's problems. 

They loved the thrill of it. Knowing that everything was collapsing, only because they knew that they were fated to fix it. _It's predestined_ , the redhead boy would say so often that they could chant it along with him. They would be awake in the middle of the night running along the roads, their powers lighting up what the moon couldn't and their laughter floating above their mouths like phantoms of their youth. Colours melted into carefree smiles when they were together. 

They didn't know back then. They couldn't know. 

He had loved a boy once, the taste of it lingers on his tongue like smoke in a burnt forest.

The boy with hair like crimson water introduced Yeosang to him, 16 moons before the green storm spilled it's first drop. Instantly, he knew there was something different about him. _Magic, surely,_ was hisfirst thought _._ But the red-headed boy answered no questions and Yeosang learned not to ask. Over the course of long nights and even longer days Yeosang fell in love with the pale boy who kissed stars onto his skin.

The boy who would lead to the end of the world.

* * *

It was a simple house that did it in the end. The thing that made Yeosang lose the belief that he could stop this, that made him stop caring.

Some things aren't meant to happen. His happiness was one of these things.

By this point they had travelled to the countryside, in search of the jewels that were meant to amplify his power. They were the culmination of a prophecy spun over centuries of awe and fear.

Yeosang was taking shelter in a cottage from a drizzle of glass sent by the heavens, cutting sharp through soft skin. Yunho was scouting, followed by Hongjoong and Wooyoung, searching for any scrap of food to sustain them. They were protected by Wooyoung's presence, a paper thin shield glowing pink above their heads.

That's when it happened.

Yeosang had felt it - glancing up at the walls bending - a second too late. Then he was elsewhere, in between the close warmth of two bodies, hair three shades of watered down pink by the light. Hongjoong and Wooyoung looking as confused as he felt. Then he was spinning and running, glass nicking his shoulders and spilling blood.

It was rubble by the time he got there. The roof curved in like someone's idea of a joke. He finally found out what made Yunho so special _(except it was so much more than just magic, he was like a dream come true, teleportation be damned)._

Something flipped then, the air left his lungs and the sky went momentarily dark as the others caught up behind him. It turns out they never needed the jewels, Yeosang just needed something to live for _(someone to die for)._ The debris jumped into the air as Yeosang screamed syllables that didn't exist. Wooyoung delved into the mess of bricks and mortar, hands scrambling for purchase.

It was his gasp that alerted Yeosang. Small and breathy, like it was pulled from his mouth. Wooyoung fell backwards like the sight alone was too much for him.

Yeosang wondered if Hongjoong had known this would happen, as he stood in rain that ran red, wondered if Hongjoong could have ever predicted this with those god forsaken eyes of his.

Stepping forward Yeosang stood next to Wooyoung before looking down.

He was still alive. Barely.

Flicking his fingers, Yeosang lifted the rest of the ruined house off of the boy he'd come to love. Crouching down, he silenced Wooyoung's weeping with a single breath. All the sound in the world switched off, sucked into the vacuum of Yeosang's powers as he balanced Yunho's head on his knees.

He didn't cry as he held onto Yunho's hands. Instead he sang, lightly blowing upon his bloodied cheeks and stroking at his broken ribs, muting his pain in his final moments. Yunho couldn't speak, his airways hit too hard when he saved Yeosang's life, the last thing he had spoken to him was mundane, a simple _wait for me_ before he left. Now it was all Yeosang could cling onto. 

Yunho dies as Yeosang sheds his first tear. 

Everything stopped then, everything that ever mattered at least. 

* * *

It came out of anger. Directed mainly at Hongjoong for ever deluding them into thinking that they were anything even close to Gods. 

"We are!" He shouts two weeks after they buried Yunho. The sky was now a permanent bruised purple, the stars falling one by one like unfulfilled wishes. " _You are,"_ as he grips Yeosang's neck and tries to convey some sense of urgency through his touch. Yeosang merely shrugs him off. His eyes as dead and cold as a body six feet under the ground. 

"I don't want to be", he hears Jongho enter the apartment they were currently living in and feels some sort of remorse, a ghost of an emotion. "Not anymore." He pushes past Wooyoung and San, ignoring Jongho's questions.

And that was it.

* * *

The world fell apart before Yeosang's eyes and he did nothing, the others held it together for as long as they could. Fighting against monsters that manifested from shadows and mountains that grew in minutes, piercing into entire cities and challenging all that they had known.

It wasn't enough, humanity still collapsed and Yeosang let it happen.

Then something went wrong. Mingi died. His own fire burning his skin. The shock of it was enough to catch him off guard. The timing couldn't have been worse, surrounded by Zeraphites in an enclosed space. He was torn apart even as he defended the civilians that relied on him.

Hongjoong blamed him. Told him that none of it would have happened if Yeosang at least _tried_ to care. _(He was right but blame didn't bring Mingi back)._

It happened again and again, their powers betraying them. San fell fifty feet from the air as he flew to deflect asteroids. Wooyoung's shield faltered as the ocean spat acid. Seonghwa's limbs twisted and bent in unimaginable ways, his shrieks neverending until his tongue finally fell from his mouth and his breathing stopped. Jongho froze from the inside out, ice dripping with every movement.

Hongjoong was the last to go. Yeosang found him in his room long after he had put Jongho to rest in a coffin made from plywood. _(It was the best they could do, though he deserved more)._

"Hyung?" Was the only thing Yeosang could muster. The room was dark and empty at first glance. But in the corner was a shaking figure, rocking back and forth. It was Hongjoong, gaunt and emaciated, their food supply having run quickly thin.

Hongjoong only looked upwards, and even in the dark Yeosang could see his white eyes rolling backwards, veins popping to the point of visible pain. "Yeosang. I can see." His voice is raspy, like he's been speaking non-stop, his red hair has been pulled out in chunks. Yeosang almost screams as he watches the downfall of his oldest friend.

The downfall of earth.

"I can see everything. All of our history. All of our futures", Hongjoong is smiling even as tears run down his cheeks, neon blue. His favourite colour. "We could have done it all Yeosang, we could have lived."

And now Yeosang does scream, a quiet pitiful little thing as he collapses before Hongjoong. Hongjoong reaches out then, blindly, and holds Yeosang close. "In another life we were happy. We all live together by the sea in Busan and we were college students." His grip tightens and Yeosang knows he's losing him. "You and Yunho get married and I'm your best man", he heaves and leans heavily onto Yeosang.

"I'm sorry", Yeosang whispers, crying openly, tears hot and heavy as they fall against Hongjoong's tremouring fingertips. Hongjoong simply shakes his head wordlessly, eyes closing. Yeosang places his hand on Hongjoong's chest. "You can sleep now, Hyung", he absorbs his pain just like he did for all of them. Gritting his teeth he forces the feeling down into his gut. Hongjoong goes limp in his arms. He can't stop them dying but he can give them sleep with dreams better than reality. Yeosang holds Hongjoong in his arms until he passes away during the early morning, humming a hymn that's made only of pretty lies. 

Then he buries him beside all the other people he called his brothers. 

* * *

The world officially ends as Yeosang is sleeping. The ground opens up and devours even the monsters that it gave birth to. Fire drops from the skies in deadly balls. By the time he wakes up there's nothing but desolation and fallen bodies.

* * *

He gave up the chance of salvation because the thought of saving a world that didn't save Yunho left him confused. There was nothing left to live for.

Yet here he is, no longer needing to eat or even breathe to survive. The last person on a planet that reached it's expiry date decades ago. He wonders if it's the universe punishing him for giving up. Taking away the one last thing he desires. The very powers that keep him alive are the same ones that failed to protect the people he loved, their faces a blurry image in his mind. _(All he can remember is how they made him feel, safe even on a dying planet)._

Yeosang charts the sun's movement, counting the seconds between dusk and dawn. His eyes close and he dreams of starting over. Somewhere by the sea, seven people at his side.

He's still waiting for them to return. 


End file.
